All this seemed fanciful to me. But as I knew very little about Jewish tradition I waited to see what traces of this poetic language Scaurus could shew in the Greek text of Mark. Before passing to that, however, Scaurus shewed me, from Isaiah, that “the stone” might be used in two senses, a good and a bad; a good, for believers, as being “the stone that had become the head of the corner”; but a bad, for unbelievers, as “the stone of stumbling and rock of offence.” And he said that the stone rolled away by Jacob was called by some Jews the Shechinah or glory of God. According to Matthew, the “stone” at the door of the tomb was “sealed” by the chief priests, the enemies of Christ. There it stood, as an enemy, saying to the disciples, “Your faith is vain. He will come out no more. He is dead.” This was “_a stone of stumbling_.” On the other hand Scaurus said he had read an epistle written by Peter, which bids the disciples come to Christ as “_a living stone_.” “Now,” said Scaurus, “taking the accounts literally, we must find it impossible to explain how the women, at about six o’clock in the morning, could expect to find men at the tomb ready and willing to roll the stone away for them; or, if guards were on the spot, how the guards could be induced to allow it. And there are also other difficulties, too many to enumerate, in the differences between the evangelists as to the object of the women’s visit. But taking the account as originally a poem, we are able to recognise (I think) two or three historic facts found in Mark alone. “First, take the statement that the women ‘said,’ or ‘said to themselves,’ ‘Who _will roll_ away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?’ I am not surprised that someone has altered this into, ‘Who _has rolled_ away the stone for us?’ Improbable though the latter is, it is at all events conceivable. But it is inconceivable that women, going to the guarded door of a prison, should ask, as a literal question, ‘Who will open the door for us?’ Taken literally, Mark’s text implies something almost as absurd as this. But now take it as a prayer to heaven. Then you may illustrate it by the language of the Psalmist, ‘Who will rise up for me against the evil-doers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?’—followed by ‘Unless the Lord had been my help my soul had soon dwelt in silence.’ So the Psalmist says, ‘Who will bring me into the fenced city?’ and then adds, ‘Hast not thou cast us off, O God?’ You see in all these cases the question is really a prayer, a passionate and almost desperate prayer, implying ‘What man will do this for us? No man. No one but God.’ So it is in the Law, ‘Who will go up to heaven? Who will go down into the deep?’ These last words Paul quotes as the utterance of something approaching to despair. So I take the women’s words as having been originally a cry to God, ‘Who, if not God, will roll away the stone!’